Aeternum Vale
by Amelia-Maria
Summary: Nobody asked for you to sacrifice yourself for us!" Colonel Mustang is dead, but can his subordinates' memories reveal exactly what happened? Angst!Ed and Human!Al.
1. Chapter 1

Um, this would be one of my first fanfictions. It's a multiple-chapter fanfic, so I'll be updating it frequently. There should be about five chapters.

Summary- Colonel Roy Mustang is dead. His subordinates spend the next few weeks after his death, contemplating on his sacrifice, and they eventually come to terms with their experience in court. Yet, how did Roy Mustang die?

Disclaimer- I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist. If I did, Alphonse would be in love with piglets and Mustang would have Armstong's personality. ;D

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**Aeternum Vale }{ Farewell Forever**

_A year later, the moss had begun to grow on Hughes' grave, eternally staining the stone green and indicating that the once-loved officer would never return from death. Next to this grave was a similar stone in shape and size, except for the lack of any age. Its inscription read: "Colonel Roy Mustang: A great soldier, friend, and ally."_

**-chapter one-**

"It's getting cold."

Edward Elric stood in front of his superior's grave, face drawn into a blank expression that could have only been matched by the Colonel's. He felt the sharp bite of the winter breeze on his back, even through the ebony dress coat he had worn over his suit. Somewhere, deep down inside of his chest, Edward desired to leave his hair down from his braid, just once. He knew that Mustang had only seen him with his hair free once, back when he was in bed as a child, without a complete set of arms and legs.

"Brother...?" Edward felt a hesitant tug on his sleeve, and gave the person next to him the slightest of glances out of the corner of his eye. Yes, [i]person[/i].

Alphonse stood next to his older brother, attempting to ignore the numbness of his toes, or the sting on the lobes of his ears. His fingers were tightly clenched, trying to retain whatever warmth remained in them. Ever since he and Edward had successfully fixed their bodies, Alphonse had become almost painfully aware of the change in seasons. Somehow, the transformation of fall into winter seemed to be the worst of all.

"Al...?" Edward spoke in the quietest voice he had. Inwardly, Alphonse winced, remembering the last time Edward had spoken his name like that. The last time, Edward had suggested that they bring back their mother from the dead. "How cold are you?" Edward said after a moment's pause. Knowing that he had really wanted to say something else, Alphonse gave a slow, mental sigh.

"Not...very cold," Alphonse said determinedly.

"Oh," Edward replied without emotion. Slowly, he stepped away from his younger brother's side, and knelt down in front of the plain stone grave that was already littered with stiff, frozen leaves. Brushing them away, Edward laid his hands on top of the stone as if he were clutching a person's shoulders.

"Alphonse got his body back, Mustang," Edward said brokenly. "I just wanted you to know that. You tried so hard to keep us safe, yet...in the end..."

The frost that had collected on top of the Colonel's grave was suddenly marred by the drop of a salty tear. More drops followed as Edward leaned over his superior's grave, crying softly. Alphonse gave a small whine of sorrow, burying his face into the cold leather of his jacket sleeve and letting himself sob silently. The two brothers lamented the Colonel's death by themselves as their other colleagues watched them from afar.

"Should we..." Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc swallowed the tightness in his throat, and shakily pulled out a cigarette. "Should we go get them?"

"No," First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye said thickly, producing a handkerchief from her pocket that she herself didn't use, but instead pushed into Master Sergeant Kain Fuery's hands. Fuery had his head hung low, shoulders shaking, bottom lip crushed between his teeth to suppress the racking sobs that threatened to break through. Seeing that he wasn't going to take the offered handkerchief right away, Havoc took it instead and set a comforting hand on Fuery's shoulder, wiping the tears away himself.

"W-Where's Falman when you need him, huh, Fuery?" Havoc joked halfheartedly as Fuery's tears kept coming. Upon hearing the absent officer's name, Fuery burst into slightly louder tears, gasping and whimpering in a failed attempt to keep himself quiet. By then, Havoc couldn't keep his own emotions from overflowing either, and joined Fuery in his sorrow. Hawkeye had her face in her hands, her chin trembling and her palms already wet with tears.

"Damn it, Colonel, you were supposed to survive," Edward whispered hoarsely into the freezing stone of Mustang's grave. "You didn't have to die. I told you to stay away, but you just had to keep walking didn't you? It doesn't matter if you were my superior, you couldn't have listened to me just once?"

"Brother..." Alphonse sniffled, looking up from his tearstained sleeve.

"Nobody asked for you to save us!" Edward burst out, slamming his right fist into the stone. The fleshy skin on his knuckles broke from the force, staining the grave crimson. "Nobody asked you to sacrifice yourself for us! It wouldn't have mattered if we failed one more time! At least..." Edward choked back a sob and let his arms hang loosely as his sides, his blood staining the stiff, frozen ground underneath him, "At least you would still be alive, Colonel Mustang..."

**xxxxx**

"You've been promoted now, huh, Hawkeye?"

Havoc's question broke the morose silence of the car, stirring the air with the puff of warm steam in front of his face. Hawkeye sat next to him in the passenger's seat, playing with a strand of her hair and chewing the inside of her cheek.

"Yes," Hawkeye said finally with a heavy sigh. "Colonel Hawkeye. I'm following in Roy's footsteps." She immediately regretted what she said when she realized what her tone implied. It sounded as if she were going to fare the same fate he did. Quickly rewording herself, she huffed, "I'm carrying out his dream for him."

Edward rested his forehead against the icy glass of the window, watching gravestones fly by as the car drove through the cemetery back towards Central. He felt a sudden warmth on his side and looked down to see a crown of brown hair. With a sad, crooked smile, Edward gave Alphonse's locks a small pet before draping his arm around his shoulders in a rare form of physical affection. Alphonse was still sniffling softly, burying his face awkwardly into Edward's side.

"I'm resigning," Edward thought aloud. Havoc looked into the rearview mirror with a red-eyed look of uncertainty.

"What?" the blonde smoker asked, hoping that he hadn't heard what he thought he did.

"I said I'm resigning...from the military. Our task has been completed. We don't have a reason to continue working for the military," Edward said, unconsciously pulling Alphonse a little closer to him, just to feel his heartbeat against his arm.

"O-Oh." Havoc's voice sounded as if it might break again any second, and he returned his eyes to the road, not trusting himself to say anything.

Fuery had fallen asleep against the window on the other side of the car, his cheeks covered with the dry tears that Havoc had missed with Hawkeye's handkerchief. Every once in a while, he would stir in his sleep, or whimper softly, causing Alphonse to flinch at the fleeting movement against his side.

"Poor kid's gone and cried himself to sleep," Hawkeye said softly, and began to shrug off her military coat. With Havoc's assistance, she pulled it away from her shoulders and leaned over to carefully drape it over Fuery's sleeping form. The only response she got from the young man was a drawn out sigh, and the slipping of his glasses to the bridge of his nose. "I don't think he should stay by himself for a while. Something tells me that he might shut down." Hawkeye looked over at Havoc, who understood immediately.

"Falman's living in the North HQ right now. Fuery can stay with me until he's got everything together." Havoc said, shakily lighting up a cigarette and pressing it to his lips.

Edward leaned against the back of the seat, letting his head fall a little to the side to rest on top of Alphonse's. It was decided. He had decided. Their journey was over; they'd gotten their bodies back, at the cost of another loved one. What more could they do, other than live out their lives as normally as they could? Something in Edward's gut told him that he and Alphonse would never be completely normal, mentally anyway. They never had been.

"Where to, Chief?" Havoc asked Edward, finally turning onto the main road and gunning the engine unnecessarily.

Edward thought for a moment, taking the time and silence to relish the feeling of Alphonse's hair against his cheek. That soft, brown hair. He felt that he was going to cry again.

"Gracia's, please," Edward said, before rubbing away the stubborn tears on his cheeks.

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This is the end of chapter one. It's rather slow. D: Sorry. The next one will be longer.

I'll post the next chapter (which I _promise_ will be better) when I get some comments.... hopefully.


	2. Chapter 2

Hey all! ^_^ Thank you for commenting on the first chapter of this story. Here's chapter two for you, and I must warn you that the angst butter is applied heavily to the slice of FMA toast. /hinthint/ I hope you enjoy this chapter, though. Have fun.

Disclaimer- No own fer me. FMA belongs to Hiromu Arakawa.

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_Drip_..._drip_...

Fuery meticulously rubbed away the splotches of water on the glass picture frame, sniffling when a few more drops took their places. How would he explain to Havoc the tear stains on the last picture taken of Colonel Mustang? Fuery continued to dry the tears on the picture, shuffling around on the couch so that he could cross his legs.

There was a soft knock on the door, as if someone was attempting not to bother him, but still try to get his attention. Fuery snapped into action, swiping the rest of the tears off the frame, and then setting it on the lamp stand next to him. He sniffed, and straightened himself up.

"I-It's open!" Fuery said, resenting the crack in his voice. He gave one final sniff as the door to his military dorm opened with a creak, and Havoc walked in. Several bags were slung over his shoulder, and he was wearing a plain pair of dark jeans and a t-shirt that was stretched across his broad chest. Havoc smiled weakly through the cigarette in his mouth.

"You ready to go?" Havoc asked, setting the bags down. Fuery nodded quickly and looked around the room. There wasn't really much for him to take. He had a few clothes, a cabinet or two of technological things, and a blanket that he rarely left in the dorm when he slept elsewhere. Food was unnecessary to bring; Fuery was sure that Havoc had enough to eat at his place.

"Hey, you been crying lately?" Havoc asked carefully as he went over to Fuery's dresser and began to pack his clothes into one of the bags. Shaking his head in an instinctive lie, Fuery sat back down on the couch and covered his face with his hands. "Well, your eyes looked wet so I..." Havoc trailed off, noticing how Fuery's shoulders were trembling. The cigarette between his lips fell to the floor, where he unconsciously put it out with a grind of his boot. "Fuery, you okay?"

"I-It's been a week..." Fuery choked out, "...and I s-still can't stop crying. You can't imagine the nightmares I b-been having." He moaned in anguish, putting his head between his knees.

Havoc watched the young man, pressing his tongue against his teeth and wondering what he could possibly say that would help him. Thinking of nothing, Havoc settled himself by placing a firm hand on the back of Fuery's head, petting him once, and then moving away to continue packing. For a while, the only noise heard in the room was Fuery's soft crying, and the rustle of items being packed away into bags.

Once the last bag was zipped up and tossed up against the door with the others, Havoc reached into his pocket for his own handkerchief. He held it out to Fuery wordlessly, who took it hesitantly and vigorously rubbed at his cheeks. Setting his jaw and standing up, Fuery handed the cloth back to Havoc.

"Keep it," Havoc said firmly, leaning over and picking up the bags he'd packed. He stepped out of the dorm room, closing it after Fuery had left as well. After the door was locked, Havoc walked Fuery to the black, military-issued car outside of the dorms.

"You're not going to sit in the passenger's seat?" Havoc asked as Fuery made his way over to the backseat of the car. With a shake of his head, Fuery shut the door, leaving Havoc to stare at the tinted window worriedly.

The packed bags were tossed into the trunk, and then Havoc was in the front seat, starting up the car. He pulled out onto the street silently, averting his eyes from the rearview mirror where he could see Fuery staring blankly out the window.

Fuery looked out of it, disheveled. His glasses were crooked, and he didn't seem to care. His clothes were nothing but a huge t-shirt that made his lean, fragile look smaller, and his military-issued trousers. His hair looked like it was sticking up more than usual, and his complexion was pale and unhealthy.

"Have you been eating, Fuery?" Havoc asked, swallowing hard. His eyes flickered up to the rearview mirror long enough to see Fuery give a jerky shake of his head. Havoc gritted his teeth and sighed. Something in the back of his mind knew that Fuery wasn't eating, and wasn't sleeping regularly. He himself hadn't had an interest in food since... last week. Havoc swallowed again and focused on the road. When he looked into the rearview mirror again, Fuery was sprawled out across the backseat, arm thrown over his face, sleeping.

xxxxx

"Three o'clock," Edward muttered softly to himself. He brought his legs up onto the armchair he sat on, wrapping his arms around his knees and resting his chin on them. Closing his eyes, he attempted to sleep for the third time in an hour, but failed to do so.

Usually, each time Edward tried to fall asleep, he would dream of the night that he and Alphonse got their original bodies back. Each dream varied in length and perspective, but they all held the same meaning and they all were true. After two nights, Edward had resorted to staying up all night, reading and sipping on cup after cup of lukewarm coffee. Alphonse didn't know about his all-nighters, or his sudden caffeine obsession, and Edward preferred that it stay that way.

However, Edward was not awakened by a nightmare of his own at the moment, but by a terrified scream coming from Alphonse's room. In less than twenty seconds, Edward had jumped up from the armchair and graced the long hallway of the Hughes' home. He thundered up the stairs and sprinted all the way to the open door of his younger brother's room.

"Brother?" Alphonse cried helplessly. Edward had heard his voice, but he didn't see him. His eyes searched the room feverishly, before they strayed to the huddled lump in the corner of the bed.

Alphonse had covered his head with his blanket, and his whole frame was shuddering violently. Edward knew better than to suppose that Alphonse was crying; neither of them cried after having a nightmare, but Alphonse always became uncomfortably clingy after waking up from one.

"Come on, Alphonse," Edward said with a long sigh, stepping into the room and sitting down on the bed, leaning against the headboard. The lump in the corner shuffled over to his side and pushed itself underneath his arm. Immediately, Edward wrapped his other arm around Alphonse's hidden form, and squeezed comfortingly.

"Every time..." Alphonse whispered hauntingly, "...Every time I dream, I'm in the Gate again, and I see him. Every time, he's taken apart right in front of me." Alphonse's voice broke, but no sobs came. Edward squeezed his brother a little tighter, secretly relishing the feel of a warm body instead of cold metal.

"Don't think about it Alphonse. He wouldn't want you to regret everything, not after his sacrifice," Edward said between his teeth. The blanket slipped off Alphonse's head, revealing his widened eyes and his trembling chin.

"When I wake up sometimes," Alphonse shook his hands out of the blanket and held them up to look at with an almost disgusted gaze, "I hate myself. I hate everything we've done so far, because I know that he's not coming back."

"Alphonse!" Edward said sharply, "Don't go there! Mustang gave his life so that you and I can be human again. Remember all those times when you said you just wanted to know what a human's warmth was like? Remember when I told I wanted to see you smile again?" Edward grabbed Alphonse's hand and brought it up to his face, pressing it to his cheek. "The only reason you can do this now, is because of Mustang. Don't regret that or his decision."

"Brother..." Then, Alphonse did cry. He collapsed into shaky tears, pulling the blanket back over his head and curling up on the bed. Edward slid down until he was laying on his side, elbow propped up on a pillow.

"It's going to be alright, Al," Edward said through the lump in his throat, "I promise you. I'm going to resign from the military, and we'll go live with Winry and Aunt Pinako again."

He received no answer.

Not caring about his lack of a response, Edward draped an arm around his brother's still shivering frame and closed his eyes. Somewhere between the haze of sleep and consciousness, he felt Alphonse shift closer to him.

xxxxx

Fuery was startled awake by the feel of a warm palm hovering over his brow. His eyes slitted, and he focused in on Breda's tightened face. With a muffled groan, he pressed his cheek back into the uncomfortably hot pillow, wanting his body to become the limp piece of string it had been only moments before.

"He's feverish. Very feverish," Breda grunted to someone.

"I'll have to admit, I didn't know the kid had it in him. He drunk me under the table last night as soon as I brought him in the house," Havoc said with only the slightest bit of astonishment. A solid slap to the back of the nonchalant smoker's head echoed through the apartment bedroom, earning a pitiful whine from the lump underneath the blankets that was Fuery.

"You're an idiot, Havoc! What if he didn't have enough tolerance for that much alcohol? And what's this?" Breda leaned over Fuery's shivering form to snatch a bottle of liquid from the nightstand. "Scotch? You know only Mustang could tolerate this crap! Why do you even _have_ this?" The last question sounded absolutely curious. "How much did the kid drink anyways?"

Havoc rubbed at the back of his head where Breda's hit had fallen. With a quick glance around the room at the shoes he'd had to take off Fuery when he'd passed out, along with the vomit-ridden shirt and pants, he grimaced. "About three bottles an a half. I say half because he puked in the last bottle." His nose wrinkled at the memory. He had been scared out of his wits when Fuery had wanted a second bottle. After he started throwing up so hard that he couldn't cry, that was when Havoc shoved his fingers down the kid's throat to make it all come up at once. When the young man's stomach was finally empty of toxins, Havoc half-carried, half-dragged the poor Sergeant into his bedroom and stripped him down to his underwear.

"That's just..." Breda shook his head, "Man, and he needs a bath too. Do you really want your bed to smell like this?" He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, looking over his shoulder towards the bathroom. "Your sink working today?"

"Nah. I forgot to pay the bill last week. I've been showering at Hawkeye's place." Havoc left the room for a moment. "I'm going to go find some aspirin."

Fuery groaned and tossed his head from side to side at the pounding pain in his head. "What time is it?" he mumbled. Breda glanced down at his watch, then pressed his hand to Fuery's forehead again. There was no difference in temperature.

"'Bout noon," Breda sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed, turning the handkerchief over in his hands. "You've got some dried stuff on your chin," he pointed out with a nod of his chin. Fuery frowned.

"Can't get it off," Fuery said, closing his eyes. "Head hurts."

"Yeah," Breda, making sure that Havoc wasn't back from the kitchen yet, dabbed at his own tongue with the handkercheif, then began to carefully clean the dried mess off of Fuery's face, "I know. May I formally introduce you to a hangover." Fuery wrinkled his nose at the cool feel of the damp cloth, and soon relaxed.

"That's... saliva... isn't it?" Fuery asked slowly. Breda chuckled lowly, and tossed the soiled handkerchief onto the nightstand. "That's disgusting."

"If you want to miraculously fix Havoc's water bill, then do so." Breda ran his hand through his shock of short, red hair. "Man, I haven't been able to sleep since last week. How are you holding up?" He asked, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

"I haven't eaten in a while," Fuery mumbled into the pillow.

"Drinking on an empty stomach. Fantastic." Breda glared over at Havoc as he walked into the room. "You're probably the most irresponsible caretaker on Earth, Jean, you know that?"

"He wouldn't eat. I can't force him," Havoc said simply, planting two pills into Fuery's mouth and pushing a glass of milk into his hand. "Drink," he ordered lightly, then faced Breda, "Hawkeye said to watch over him, not babysit him."

"S'true," Fuery mumbled after taking a cautious sip of the milk. Breda grunted and shook his head as he stood up.

"I just came over to check up on you two. Hawkeye asked me to," the red-haired man said as he headed towards the front door. Havoc followed him with his hand in his pockets.

As Breda stepped out into the frosty air, he looked over his shoulder at Havoc. "How has he been, really?" he asked seriously. Havoc shook his head, running his hand through his hair.

"It's only been a day. I can't really say much," he said with a half-hearted shrug. Breda, dissatisfied with his answer, left the property with a frown.

The door clicked shut, and Havoc sauntered his way back into his occupied room, only to find that Fuery was gone from the bed. In a moment's panic, he realized that the poor kid was stumbling his way into the bathroom, wanting to vomit up the milk he'd just drank.

"Hey! Fuery!" Havoc called roughly and was at the young man's side in a second, throwing the kid's arm over his shoulder so that he could half-drag him the rest of the way to the toilet. Once there, Havoc kept a reassuring hand on Fuery's heaving back as he emptied the contents of his stomach into the porcelain bowl. Between retches, Fuery sobbed quietly and clutched the rim with all of his might, hard enough that Havoc though he would shatter it.

"I... I just can't take it," Fuery gasped, "The thought... the thought of his screaming like that when the Gate opened... I just can't take it." On an even lower note, barely a whisper, he added, "It scares me. Makes me want to just end it. End now before I find an end like he did. Ohh..." He retched again. "The nightmares...that horrified scream...the _blood_-" He paused to retch once more, "The blood was everywhere. On my hands, on my face. In my mou-" Suddenly, Fuery collapsed into frenzied tears once more, shoulders trembling like a child's and his forehead pressed against the cool rim of the toilet seat.

Havoc had been watching him solemnly, feeling the rising guilt at the fact that though he had been present at the time of Roy Mustang's death, he hadn't seen the entire scenario. Heck, Fuery was still young, it didn't matter if he was a Sergeant or an advanced technician. Take those few aspects away and add on a fiery disposition with blonde hair and you had Edward Elric.

"Fuery, let's get you back to bed," Havoc said gently, kneeling down next to the young man with a wet cloth in his hand, dampened by the bottle of water he kept by the sink. As smoothly as he could, he cleaned Fuery's face, rubbing the back of the kid's head as he did so until he was sure that he'd accidently put him to sleep. With an inward groan at his realized mistake, he hooked his arm around Fuery's shoulders and the other under his legs. Standing with surprisingly little effort, Havoc walked down the hall back to his room. Exhausted and sure that he was smelling horrible, Havoc nearly collapsed onto the bed with Fuery. Colleague or not, he sure could use a crap load of sleep at the moment, and the kid on the bed wasn't helping.

"M'sorry I lied, Breda," Havoc sighed out loud as he left the room in search of the couch.

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Next chapter's up when I get more reviews. : And it will be hopefully more... exciting than this. _ Conversationally-wise anyway. Adieu~!


	3. Chapter 3

Hey there. Here's chapter three. I know you're probably wondering somewhere in the back of your mind why these chapters are popping up so quickly. It's because this story is already finished. I'm just procrastinating because I'm lazy. :3

Anywho, this chapter will have some humor in it... somewhere. _ I won't guarantee it.

Disclaimer: I don't own FMA. Duh.

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Ed's eyes glanced up from the newspaper at the doorway when he heard the sound of slow footsteps coming down the hall. It turned out to be Gracia, carrying her daughter against her shoulder. Ed smiled fondly at the memory of his own mother leaning over to scoop his younger brother up from the couch and into bed.

"Oh! I didn't see you there, Ed," Gracia said, slightly breathless from carrying Elysia's growing body. "Um, would you mind...?" She nodded down at the crown of mussed, golden hair. Ed shook his head and set the paper down, holding out his arms to accept the child. Elysia flopped against him like a ragdoll, still very much asleep. "Thank you," Gracia said with a grateful smile, rubbing one of her shoulders as she hunted down breakfast through the cupboards. "She's getting to be like her father, baby fat and all."

Ed chuckled. Hughes hadn't been pudgy, but he certainly wasn't lean like Fuery. Maes Hughes and Roy Mustang had been almost identical in body mass, at least to Ed's eyes.

"I don't think Alphonse was awake when I passed your room, Ed," Gracia said, cracking eggs into a sizzling pan of butter, "Will he be getting up in time for breakfast? I think I'm making something he likes today. He should start eating more, he's getting a little thin-..." She paused when she looked over her shoulder and found that Ed was helplessly glaring down at the kitchen tile. "Ed? Are you okay?"

"M'fine," Ed said uncomfortably, and heaved himself to his feet, replacing his own body with Elysia's. He didn't like to constantly be aware of his brother's poor health. As he began going down the hall towards his and Alphonse's room, the mail-bell rang at the front door, and he halted his previous movements to go and fetch the package of envelopes that had been slid through the metal flap of the door.

"Is that the mail?" Gracia called from the kitchen, "Funny. We usually don't get anything but bills anymore, perhaps something from the Grangefords every once in a while. Anything for you?"

Edward thumbed through the several envelopes, finding that indeed, most of them were bills. His lazy movement ceased, however, when his finger skimmed over his and Alphonse's last names printed neatly in the middle of a envelope that read: Military Case File Government-Owned. Easily sliding the envelope into his jacket sleeve, he returned to Gracia and handed her the rest of the pile.

"Nope. Nothing," he lied smoothly. "I'll go wake Alphonse up. He's been sleeping long enough," Ed said with a deep stretch of his arms into the air.

Alphonse was sitting up in bed when Edward found him. In one hand, he held a safety pin with which he was repeatedly pricking his fingers with. Each time the brunette saw a bead of blood, he would smile in a way that particularly scared Ed. He looked almost... manic.

"Al! What are you doing?" Ed cried, nearly stumbling his way over to the bed so that he could snatch the safety pin away from Alphonse's hands. The brown-haired boy jumped in surprise, and he immediately shoved his hands underneath the blankets to hide them. He looked as if he wanted to cry, but Ed knew that Alphonse wouldn't burst into tears just yet.

"I-I'm sorry, Brother!" Al blurted out, "I'd forgotten what pain felt like, s-so I pricked myself."

"Al, you don't have to hurt yourself in order to feel something! You can just as easily stub your own toe while getting out of bed!" Ed said, hands in the air with exasperation. "I don't ever want to see you doing that again. Now, let me see your hands."

"No," Alphonse said softly, curling himself further into the blanket. Edward was surprised for a moment. His brother had never disobeyed him in such a way before. Sure, they'd had their disagreements and problems, but never once had Alphonse gone against what he'd asked him to do. It made Ed queasy.

"Alphonse, " he asked on a lower tone, "Please. Let me see your hands. I just want to see."

"No," Al whispered, shifting away from Edward farther. "No, Ed."

Rarely did Alphonse call Ed by his first name. He only did it when he was extremely angry or stubborn. Now Ed knew that Alphonse was hiding something on his hands.

"Alphonse, don't make me wrestle you down." Edward said with a small tremor in his voice, "I will. Now show me your hands."

With a choked sob, Alphonse held out his hands and hung his head in shame. For a moment, Ed forgot to breathe, and he sat down hard on the bed. His younger brother had traced what looked like transmutation circles on his palms. They were bloody symbols of destruction.

"Al, why? You can't bring him back," Ed said softly, taking one of Alphonse's hands in his own and rubbing away some of the blood with the corner of his sleeve. The cuts of the circle were deep and looked as if they would take at least a week to heal. Alphonse usually wasn't tolerant of pain; each time he'd skin his knees as a kid, Ed would have to fetch their mother to carry him home because Al refused to move.

"I know, Ed!" Alphonse snapped, snatching his hand away and tucking it back into the blanket he was covered with. Ed flinched backwards, nearly falling off the bed in surprise.

"Al-?" He was cut off before he could protest.

"I know I can't bring him back, but dammit, when will I be better again?" Alphonse lamented, rubbing his eyes clean of tears, but smearing his cheeks with blood in the process. "I want to accept his sacrifice, but..."

"You don't have to draw freakin' circles on your hands to make yourself feel better, Al!" Ed said sternly, "What were you going to do? Kill yourself? See if you could miraculously call Mustang back from the Gate? Stuff just doesn't happen that way, Al! Equivalent Exchange!"

"Don't lecture me on Equivalent Exchange when you yourself tried the same thing when Mom died!" Alphonse screamed, sending Edward scrambling to the other side of the room in horror. A pregnant pause followed the short argument between them, broken only by the sound of Alphonse's shaky crying. Edward finally managed to let out a small, wounded sound before he sank to the floor.

"It wasn't the same, Al," Edward said, his voice rising, "You know it wasn't the same."

"I'm sorry," Alphonse hiccuped, "Brother, I'm sorry. I dunno w-what's come over me."

"It's okay," Ed exhaled, pushing him to his wobbly feet and returning to the bed once more. Shakily, he pulled Alphonse under his arm and held him. "You... You were just frustrated. Besides, it was true, what you said. But you don't have to kill yourself over it."

"Am I going crazy?" Alphonse asked, his voice muffled by Ed's shoulder.

Ed smiled faintly, "No, Al. If you're crazy, then I must be insane."

"Then I _must_ be crazy," Alphonse said with a sniffle's worth of a laugh. Ed smiled a bit wider, then let it all fade.

"Promise me that you'll leave your hands alone. Mustang wouldn't have wanted you to hurt yourself after he sacrificed himself to bring you back whole." Ed sighed with relief as Alphonse nodded and sniffled one last time.

"M'sorry." Alphonse wrapped his arms around Ed in a hug of apology, but he backed off suddenly with a curious expression clashing with his damp eyes. "Ed, what's in your coat? Feels like paper." He pointed to Ed's sleeve.

"Oh. I was going to show you this before I walked in on you," Ed explained, wriggling the government envelope out of his coat and examining it again. "Should we open it now?"

"I'll do it," Alphonse said, taking the envelope and frowning when Ed promptly snatched it back. "What? Oh." His hands were still smeared with blood.

"We'll open it later," Ed promised, "Besides, I heard from Gracia that Havoc is supposed to-"

He was interrupted when the doorknocker was thumped from downstairs.

"-bring Fuery over to breakfast. He can't cook," Ed finished and tossed the envelope onto the bed unceremoniously. "Let's go eat, Al. You look like you need a few more pounds."

Alphonse gave a genuine smile and accepted the hand that helped him off of the bed. His pajamas drooped off his shoulders, and his bottoms dragged against the floor; he really did need more nutrition. Ed was almost taller than him.

The brothers thumped down the stairs ungracefully and made their way into the kitchen where Elysia had her plump arms latched around one of Gracia's legs. It was unlikely that the child remembered Havoc and Fuery from the few pictures the Hughes family had kept in their house.

"Hey, Elysia," Havoc said kindly, leaning over with his hands on his knees in an attempt to be less scary. "I was Daddy's friend. It's very nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you," Fuery echoed from behind the blonde man. As Ed walked with Alphonse over to the table, he noticed how badly the black-haired technician was faring. He looked thin and tired, and his face no longer had the babyish look to it that defined him in general. Before the Colonel's death, it wasn't unusual for the men at HQ to refer to Fuery as 'kid' or 'that baby-faced one over there'. Now, he was just... Fuery.

"It's nice to see you two again," Gracia said from the kitchen doorway with a warm smile as she slid a pan of eggs onto a platter. "You all should sit down. I'm almost done," she announced, setting the steaming platter onto the dining table. With a small grunt of effort, she scooped Elysia up and settled her into a chair at Ed's side, in-between him and Alphonse.

"Are you two doing okay, nowadays?" Havoc asked the brothers conversationally as he watched Gracia flutter around the kitchen. Edward and Alphonse exchanged a mental conversation of their own for a moment before they both dropped their gazes to the table.

"Yeah. We're okay," Edward said flatly, "Alphonse is gaining a lot of his weight back." He was grateful for the distraction Elysia provided as her chin lolled against her chest in sleepiness. With a small smirk, he arranged the child's arms so that she was resting them on the table, providing a more comfortable pillow for her cheek. Sluggishly, her eyes closed, and she was asleep again.

"How about you two?" Alphonse asked, crossing his legs on the chair.

"Ahh..." Havoc waved his hand in a dismissing manner, "It's winter. Everybody loses weight in winter, right?" He grinned with what Edward supposed was a hint of feigned humor.

"I thought you lose weight in the summer," Alphonse mumbled, half to himself.

To Havoc's surprise, Fuery cracked the tiniest of smiles at Al's correction, but he quickly hid it in a loud cough directed to the crook of his elbow. For a few moments, the only noise at the table was the alarming sound of Fuery's coughing, and then it went uncomfortably silent.

"So, when is Falman returning from the North?" Gracia said as she stepped into the room carrying platters of both toast and ham. Havoc flushed with relief at the start of a new conversation.

"In about half a year," he replied, nodding gratefully at the stack of plates he was handed. While passing the plates around, he kept a wary eye on Fuery. The young man was fiddling with the tablecloth and licking his raw lips, looking fairly uncomfortable. "You'll be glad when he's back, won't you, Fuery?" Havoc said cheerfully, arranging the Sergeant's plate for him. Fuery nodded obediently and leaned back in his chair as if trying to avoid the food.

"Aren't you hungry, Kain?" Gracia asked, taking her own place at the table.

"Erm... yeah. I'm just feeling a little sick," Fuery admitted blankly. Edward raised an eyebrow as he sipped at a glass of orange juice.

"Stomachache?" Ed guessed half-correctly. Fuery nodded, and Havoc opened his mouth to stop him from replying, but it was too late.

"I drank a little more than I should have, I'm afraid," Fuery said sheepishly, rubbing his hand over his stomach unconsciously.

"You let him _drink_?" Alphonse said incredulously to Havoc. "But Mr. Fuery never drinks."

It was true. Fuery was one of the 'designated drivers' at Christmas parties and was the one who drank flavored water at New Years' get-togethers. Mostly everyone in the military believed that he had some sort of low tolerance for alcohol. It turned out that he did; Havoc simply found out about it in an unwelcome way.

"Like I told Breda, he drank the Scotch himself. It's not like I could stop him from-"

"Scotch?" Edward nearly spat the juice in his mouth back into his glass. "Only Mustang could tolerate that stuff!"

"That's what _Breda_ said!" Havoc threw his hands into the air.

"How much did you drink?" Alphonse asked Fuery curiously through a small mouthful of ham.

"I dunno," the black-haired man said timidly.

"A lot, I bet. You're so irresponsible, Havoc," Edward grumbled.

"Is _everyone_ against me today?"

"Did you pay your water bill? Don't tell me Fuery hasn't showered yet," the younger blonde said with a wrinkled nose.

"We stopped... by... Hawkeye's," Havoc managed to grit out between his teeth before returning his tense attention to his plate. Gracia had been eating patiently and quietly the entire time as if they whole spat between Havoc and the brothers was nothing more than a normal family argument at Thanksgiving.

"Maybe Hawkeye should've taken care of you," Alphonse said to Fuery with a sidelong glance. Havoc looked at the brown-haired youth witheringly.

"Tell me this, kid. Would you rather Fuery not eat at all and have a choice to do that, or would you like him to have a gun at his head during every meal?"

Alphonse and Edward looked at each other, then at Fuery. Fuery was staring down at his plate with a full fork but an empty mouth. He looked exhausted.

"The gun," the brothers said at the same time, causing Fuery to crack a small smile again and Gracia to giggle over a mouthful of eggs. Havoc rolled his eyes and wiped his mouth with a napkin before standing up.

"I need a cigarette," he explained as he left the room with a lighter already in hand. Edward and Alphonse couldn't resist laughing softly.

As Edward and Alphonse finished, they helped carry their plates into the kitchen. Edward raised an eyebrow in Fuery's direction when he found that the young man's plate was still completely full. Gracia noticed his stare.

"Oh, it's not a problem for me, Edward. I just wanted to make sure you guys had enough to eat," Gracia said cheerfully as she began scraping the remains on the dishes into the garbage can. She began to reach for Fuery's plate, but Edward stopped her gently.

"Gimme a sec," he said quickly and took the plate from her. Determinedly, he made his way over to the table where Elysia was still slumped over in her chair and Fuery was toying with the tablecloth again. With a silent order, he slid the plate in front of the Sergeant, then set his hands on his hips.

"Eat three bites. Now," he said calmly and without any force in his voice. Fuery looked up at him with a pleading frown, then down at the plate. "Why won't you eat? C'mon, Fuery, you're going to get sick." Fuery remained in his childish pout before he answered Edward slowly.

"I can't."

"Why not?" Ed asked promptly with perhaps a little too much force. Alphonse set a hand on his shoulder to stop his most likely hurtful comment.

"I _can't_ eat anything. The back of my mouth hurts," Fuery complained, pushing his plate away. Gracia swooped in and took the plate away in an instant.

"Well, he obviously doesn't want any food right now. I'll just make him something to take with him when he leaves," she explained with the fiery intent that Edward knew was an air of finality.

Fuery relaxed deeply, as if he were a child who'd just escaped having to eat his vegetables. Edward had never seen him like this. In fact, Fuery usually ate most of the desserts and treats that they had at parties in the military. He was either fixing the fuse box, tampering with the light system, or eating. To see him actually _relieved_ at the thought of not eating-

"I didn't want to eat either," Alphonse stated matter-of-factly to the Sergeant, startling Edward out of his thoughts. "My mouth hurts too."

"Really? Where?" Edward said immediately, taking Alphonse by the chin and prying his mouth open. Alphonse gave a muffled protest due to the saliva that began collecting in the bottom of his mouth. "No way. Al?" Edward let Alphonse go quickly, looking at him incredulously. "Your wisdom teeth, Mom had them removed early when you were eight, didn't she?"

"Um-hm," Alphonse nodded, sticking his tongue in the back of his mouth to check all of his teeth. There were four extra. Two on either side of of his mouth. Wisdom teeth. "Mom had those pulled out. That hurt."

"Maybe the Gate gave you _everything_ back." Edward said, tapping his finger against his chin, then waving it off as if it were nothing. He had his brother back, so what would a few extra teeth matter?

"The point is, Mister Fuery," Alphonse began, "You have to try eating again, even though your mouth hurts. We couldn't stand it if you got sick. Especially after Mustang."

Fuery stiffened greatly as if he'd been shocked. Then, he stood up unnaturally roughly from the table and stomped out of the room.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Alphonse said to no one, now that Fuery had left. Edward set a reassuring hand on his brother's shoulder and squeezed.

"Everyone is still hurting," the elder brother said quietly, then looked over at the front door when he saw Havoc with a lit cigarette in his mouth, reaching for his jacket on the coat rack. Havoc gave him a look that said 'Don't ask', and then his eyes searched for Fuery. Ed jerked his chin in the direction that Fuery had left, and Havoc stared at him questioningly. In return, Ed shrugged as if to say 'Hell, it wasn't my fault'.

"Will one of you say something?" Alphonse complained.

"He didn't say anything first!" Edward protested with a wave of his arm in Havoc's direction, but the blonde man had already gone off to fetch Fuery.

xxxxx

"You guys take care of yourselves, got it?" Edward said with his arms folded over his chest as he watched Fuery slide his coat on over his frail shoulders. Havoc was holding a pot of soup in a paper bag under his arm, courtesy of Gracia.

"You don't have to worry about us. You two should be more concerned about yourselves, especially with the court case coming up next week," Havoc said, balancing the pot of soup on his hip so that he could arrange Fuery's scarf around his neck properly. Edward and Alphonse looked at each other.

"Court case?" Alphonse asked.

"Read the envelope you should have gotten this morning. Me 'n Fuery both got one right before we left this morning. I bet you guys got one too," Havoc said as he started down the front steps of the house. Fuery followed him sulkily with his head lowered.

"Envelope," Edward sighed. "Right. Let's go, Al." He set a hand on his younger brother's head and guided him back upstairs. They had some reading to do.

* * *

Read and review! P:


	4. Chapter 4

Hey, hey, hey. : D S'goin' on?

Okay, here's the thing: This chapter is going to be mostly from Mustang's point of view. The italics are his first person, and the quotes in italics are his memories. Everything is... not him. Duh. Hopefully, you guys will be happy that I stuck Hughes in there. I tried. D:

Disclaimer= Nope. I don't own FMA. :

Read on, my sheep.

* * *

_Dark. Even, blank darkness. It's got to be nighttime. I don't know if there's any other way to describe it. When I look up, all I see is endless black, but that's always there. It's like a starless sky. However, below me, I see countless amounts of pin-pointed light, constellations, the Milky Way. I'm watching a sky under my own feet. It's beautiful._

"Why did we have to wait until now to read it, Brother?"

_I know that voice. It's unmistakable. Alphonse Elric, Edward Elric's younger brother. Brown hair, soft eyes, fair skin. But he didn't have those before. I blink hard, and for a moment, I hear one of those damned memories echo in the dark above me._

"_Nobody asked you to sacrifice yourself for us!"_

_Oh yeah. I did that. _

_A sudden, chilling breeze rips past me, tossing me like a feather in its current. I sail wordlessly through the empty air, waiting for the breeze to drop me off at another place I recognize. It always seems to bring me to a familiar place. I've learned to simply go along with it._

"Gracia would've been asking about it. You know that, Al," Edward said as he peeled open the manila envelope in his hands. Alphonse was sitting on the bed, legs crossed next to where his brother lounged on the floor. With a soft rustle of papers, Edward drew out the heavy file with their names printed on the top page. After a quick flip-through, Edward discovered a packet of photos taken at the scene of Alphonse's return transmutation.

"This is..." One of Ed's hands went up to cover his mouth in horror as his eyes widened, reminding Alphonse of an identical pair of golden suns. "Alphonse, look at this picture."

_I move closer to the brothers, wanting to see what the picture was. I stood on the bed, my bare feet making no indentation in the blankets. After all, I was weightless. I didn't make indentations anymore, much less shadows. I wasn't even a ghost._

_By turning myself slightly, I could see the photo over Alphonse's shoulder. At the same time as the brown-haired boy, I gasped and was nearly swept into the air again by a brief breeze of surprise._

"Brother..?" Alphonse choked out, "This is the room. This is the room where it happened! I remember! We were there..." He began indicating different areas in the photo, "...Fuery was there. Havoc had been outside. Mustang was... here." He pointed to the corner of the photo where the very edge of a dark room was situated. It was in the corner of the picture that I could see a very visible smudge on the concrete wall of the room. At a first glance, it really did look like a smudge, but further examination led me to believe that it was a shadow. My shadow.

"That picture was taken almost thirty minutes after they had taken you and I to the hospital, Al," Edward said, swallowing hard. I swallowed too, but I felt nothing. I blinked again and heard one of those damned memories.

"_Mustang? Mustang?! Answer me! Dammit, Colonel, you'd better not have done what I think you did! Colonel Mustang!"_

_I touched my non-existent face, hoping to find the tears that I was sure I was crying. There were none, not even the faintest trace of dampness. I found that I didn't regret that time, but it hurt to remember._

"_Al? Answer me, Al? Alphonse? Please be back. Please be back..."_

"That's his shadow. Brother, that's his shadow. I know it!" Alphonse said, his voice escalating, "He was standing right there when you began the transmutation. He promised to watch us, and he stood right there!"

"Shh! Al!" Ed shook his hands to quiet his brother down. "Maybe when I transmuted you and he did that stupid thing..."

_Hey. It wasn't stupid. I would've smacked the little mouthy idiot in the back of the head if I still had flesh-hands._

"...the Gate left a piece of him behind. Or maybe the Gate took his body so quickly that part of his existence didn't have time to follow. Alphonse, do you understand?" Edward looked positively terrified. His face had gone pale, and his hands were shaking. He licked his lips over and over.

"He's stuck?" Alphonse whispered his guess, his complexion being slightly paler than his brother's. "He's stuck between the Gate and our world?"

"No! No, he's able to traverse between the Gate and our world! He has _two bodies_. Oh, damn. What have we done? We've left him with no place to stay. There's no way to reverse this!"

_I didn't mind. Two bodies was alright with me. At the time when Edward was transmuting Alphonse, I had fully intended to do what I had done. I knew Ed wouldn't be able to bring his brother back with the meager leg and arm he still had to offer. They deserved their whole bodies again. Being stuck in a limbo of life between two worlds for the rest of eternity, it didn't seem so bad. After all, the breeze took me wherever I wanted to go, and my body never grew hungry or tired._

_That was how Alphonse had felt for all of those years._

_I replaced him._

"Brother..?" Alphonse looked close to tears. _Dammit, I hated it when the kid cried when I was stuck in the same state as smoke. It made me feel worse than I already did. Please, don't cry again._

"I've sent him to a place worse than hell," Edward chuckled hysterically, "Well, I told him to go away. I told him not to move. But he..." Suddenly, his eyes looked straight at me. I swear, I'd never seen him look so haunted as he had looked at that moment. It seemed as if he were going to evaporate. Then, he looked at Alphonse. "We shouldn't be reading this so late at night. The court case is in four days. We've got time."

"But, Brother-"

"Don't start, Al," Edward warned. "It's late. Your body needs the sleep. We'll finish reading tomorrow." On a softer note, he added, "Okay?"

Alphonse seemed to deflate slightly, but he nodded. "Fine."

_Then, the breeze was back, carrying me away none-so-gently to another place. As I careened through the air, I squeezed my eyes shut to block out the beautiful stars below. After seeing Edward's guilt, seeing the night sky just didn't feel worth it._

_I landed soundlessly on a patch of damp graveyard grass, next to a stone I knew so well as my own. Beside it lay Hughes's marker. _

"_You went to see them again, I assume?" The familiar outline of a hazel-eyed man sat on top of his own grave, hunched over in a casual form of sitting. He eyed me without the glasses he had used while he was still alive. Ghosts don't need glasses. They see everything clearly._

"_Yeah," I sighed, resting my back against the cool granite of my own grave. Finally, I looked up at the night sky, smiling faintly with relief that they were above me for the first time in a very long while. "Ed found out what he'd done to me."_

"_He didn't take it so well." Hughes didn't state it as a question. _

"_He never was the sort of kid to take information like that with a calm demeanor. I guess I had it coming, huh?" _

"_That's what you get for doing stupid things. You heard what he said when they buried you. He was prepared to fail again." Hughes made his habitual movement of pushing his 'glasses' farther up his nose._

"_If someone says my idea was stupid one more time, I'm going to haunt them," I growled._

"_You can't haunt if you're not a ghost," Hughes said simply with a haughty grin._

"_Don't remind me." I closed my eyes, wanting to sleep. Of course, I couldn't sleep. Sleeping was for someone who was truly dead. While away from the Gate, the body I was in was unable to retain sleep. My other body in the Gate was unconscious. _

"_You don't regret what you did, do you?" my black-haired comrade mused._

"_Nah. Those boys deserved what they got. If I was going to die, I wanted to go out with a bang." I frowned with my eyes still shut, "I really wanted to become Fuhrer, though. Looks like Hawkeye's going to have to take care of my unfinished business."_

"_She can do it. After all, she _was_ under your command." _

_I chuckled, "She'll probably just end up assassinating the Fuhrer just to get into office. Why didn't I think of that before?"_

"_Idiot." He grinned, "I'm going to sleep. Goodnight, Roy." Hughes slipped off of his grave and wiggled around until his body slid effortlessly into the ground. When only his neck and face showed, he added, "You should wake up now. Sleeping in is bad for you." Then, he disappeared into his coffin. I probably wouldn't see him again until the breeze decided to bring me to the graveyard once more._

"_Yeah. I'll see you later, Maes," I sighed, then stood on top of my grave. "Alright. Let's go," I said to no one, and felt my body being lifted into the air again._


	5. Chapter 5

Forewarning: This chapter is going to be split into two parts so that you don't have a coronary trying to scroll down twelve pages of text. Part two will be the entire... whatever you want to call it; how Mustang died, I guess.

Disclaimer= I don't own FMA.

* * *

"Wake up, Fuery. C'mon, now's not the time to complain about sleep. I told you to go to bed early last night, but no one ever seems to listen to me lately."

Havoc stood over the edge of what he hoped would eventually be his own bed again. He'd let the Sergeant bunk in it, not having the heart to tell the kid to sleep on the couch after all of his nightmares. Instead, Havoc had been spending his nights on the couch staring at his living room ceiling while wondering if Fuery was ever just going to _shut the hell up_ in his sleep. Sure, he didn't mind if Fuery let out a scream or two while the blonde man was still awake. He actually would have the patience to sit on the edge of the bed and hand the shivering man a tissue or pet his head or do whatever else he thought would comfort him. However, Fuery waking up screaming at three in the morning was very unwelcome, thus Havoc had chosen to lock up his firearms in a safe in the kitchen should he happen to get any ideas when the opportunity arose.

"Too early," Fuery complained into the pillow, but reluctantly wriggled out from underneath the blankets. For a moment, the young Sergeant wavered on his feet, and Havoc instinctively held out his arms to catch him, but Fuery managed to shuffle himself into the bathroom where he proceeded to use the toilet without closing the door.

"You could attempt to be civilized, kid." Havoc rolled his eyes and shut the door himself, just before Fuery began stripping himself for a quick shower. Finally, the blonde man had learned to pay the water bill on time.

A knock on the front door caught the blonde man's attention, and he jogged down the steps with an unlit cigarette in his mouth to answer it. "Who is it?" he called, throwing open the door anyway. As long as it wasn't Hawkeye he would be safe.

"Good morning, Lieutenant Havoc. I'm here to drive you two to HQ."

_Crap_, it was Hawkeye. Havoc nearly inhaled his cigarette down his throat.

"Mornin'," Havoc choked out, stepping back to let the shorter woman enter. Riza Hawkeye promptly did so, and her sharp eyes began searching the room intently. "Fuery's taking a shower, if that's what you're wondering."

"By himself?" Hawkeye questioned, though Havoc caught a hint of contented surprise in her tone. He nodded.

"He hasn't even drowned himself yet," the blonde man declared proudly, and proceeded to light the cigarette in his mouth. Out of habit, Hawkeye removed the cigarette and tossed it out into the snow in front of the door. There were countless times that she had told him _not_ to smoke with Fuery in the house.

"Yet? He hasn't drowned... _yet_?" Hawkeye asked, and Havoc nearly pissed himself as he noticed her hand twitch in the direction of her pistol.

"I was just kidding! I'm going to go get dressed!" Havoc said in a voice an octave higher than his usual tone before he launched himself up the stairs at a laughable pace. It was then that Hawkeye realized that the blonde smoker was wearing only his boxers.

xxxxx

"Havoc! Over here!"

Breda stood on the steps of HQ next to a pair of youths who looked utterly uncomfortable wearing suits and ties. As Havoc practically dragged Fuery over to the unlikely group, he recognized the youths as Edward and Alphonse. Edward had tied his hair back into a long ponytail that brushed his shoulderblades, but Alphonse had chosen to leave his hair loose. Both of them wore new suits of their own, probably bought with the remaining money Edward had in his military account.

"Well don't you two look... insecure," Havoc said with a grin, turning Fuery towards him so that he could fix the young man's tie. Fuery looked as if he were ready to blow up and pass out at the same time.

"Gracia took us shopping two days ago," Edward said as if he were recalling a recent nightmare. "She wanted to buy everything in sight."

"Gentlemen, it's time to go inside," Hawkeye said firmly after glancing at her pocketwatch as she walked up the front steps.

_xxxxx_

"The trial of the transmutation of a human being has hereby commenced. Order."

Edward sat down with his brother, swallowing hard and staring down at his clasped hands. He and the others were sitting on a long bench in the middle of a court room that was empty, minus the judge, jury and a few soldiers. A small, scholarly-looking man in a wool suit sat near the judge's pulpit, holding a notepad that he was scribbling in almost maniacally.

"The performer of human transmutation in the case is Edward Elric. Would you please rise and come up to the stand?" The stout, hard-faced old man who stood as the judge was dressed in military uniform. It appeared that the Fuhrer didn't intend to even bother coming to the court case.

Surprising himself, Edward managed to stand up from the bench without shaking and stepped onto the raised platform in front of the pulpit. The judge looked down on him as if he were a child sent to the principal's office. He was just another court case.

"You will recall the entire incident as well as you can, due to the fact that you are the one who activated the transformation. Do not leave out any details," the judge drawled. A scratch of a pen directed Edward's attention over to the little man in the corner with his note back, and he inwardly grimaced.

After clearing his throat, Edward began to speak.

"The transformation itself occurred at 2300 hours and ended successfully at 0200 hours with the exception of one casualty," he said informatively with the slightest of wavers in his voice, "Those who were present were myself, my younger brother Alphonse, our superior Colonel Roy Mustang, now deceased, and a few of his subordinates."

"Name them."

Edward looked over his shoulder for a moment at Havoc, Breda, and Fuery, who were all looking as if they wanted to sink into the floor.

"First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, Second Lieutenant Heymans Breda, Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc, and Master Sergeant Kain Fuery were all present at the time, Sir," Edward continued, trying to mentally drown out the sounds of the scratchy writing coming from the corner.

"Continue. Explain the procedure that was used."

"Procedure?" Edward asked incredulously. The judge narrowed his eyes.

"Did I not enunciate well enough, Major Elric?"

Edward licked his lips and sighed. "No Sir, I understood. During the preparation for the transmutation, we cleared out an area of an empty gun factory situated between Central and the East City. Colonel Mustang promised us..." He hesitated, felt the beginning of a lump in his throat, "..._promised_ us that he would stay in the room during the transmutation, but he did not participate. Sergeant Fuery remained in the room as well because we needed his assistance in drawing the circle... t-transmutation circle, that is, Sir."

"How did you retrieve the Philosopher's stone?" The judge was reading the file that Edward and Alphonse had gotten. It must've been a copy, because Edward was sure that he'd left the file at Gracia's.

"We discovered that my younger brother's armor had been created into a Philosopher's Stone by a rogue Ishbalan by the name of Scar-"

"Armor?" The judge raised a caterpillar-like eyebrow.

Edward forced down the lump and nodded heavily. "Yes Sir, armor. My younger brother and I produced a failed human transmutation in the past, resulting in..." He looked down at his shoes and squeezed his eyes shut. His heart was stuck somewhere between his backbone and stomach, thudding erratically. "It resulted in the loss of my right arm and left leg, while my brother lost his entire body. I... I attached his soul to a body of armor in my father's basement."

"A child of your age?" the judge mused to himself. Edward looked up at the man with the slightest disdain.

"I was about ten, but I'm seventeen now, Sir."

"But you are not yet an adult, Major Elric, and you will speak when spoken to. Do you understand?" A muscle in Edward's temple throbbed angrily.

"Yes, Sir."

"Continue.


	6. Chapter 6

Eheh... Hey there, guys. ^^; Yeah, I know some of you were all 'JKLFS' when I cut off the last part so abruptly, but I won't do it again, I swear!

This chapter is going to be from Mustang's POV, simply because he was present during the transmutation the entire time. If you want, make believe that Ed is telling this whole thing. It probably won't make sense.

The next chapter is closing up the case.

Enjoy this one.

Disclaimer= Nope. I don't own FMA.

* * *

xxxxx

"_I thought I told you to stay outside, Colonel. All we need is Fuery's help, and you're useless when it comes to this stuff," Edward grumbled, drawing a curved line of chalk on the concrete floor. Fuery was on the other side of the room, scratching his chalk across the floor as well. The emerging design reminded Ed much of a blossoming flower, like the eruption of life itself. _

_I kept my distance from the two working young men and looked over at the suit of armor sitting in the corner. Alphonse wasn't participating in drawing the transmutation circle. When Edward had tried to talk him into it, Alphonse had only let out a small grunt and remained silent enough that I thought his soul had left. However, the poor kid was still in there somewhere, thinking._

"_Alphonse?" I made my way over to him across the chalked floor, ignoring the protests of 'Dammit Colonel! Now I have to sketch this part over!' coming from Ed's direction. Alphonse's armor creaked slightly when he looked up at me from the hollowness of his shell. _Oh_, I thought, _he's scared_. When I looked at him close enough, I could see how the giant arms he'd wrapped around his thick knees were trembling slightly, and I could hear the constant chink of his joints._

"_I hope Brother draws it right. He never really was good at drawing," Alphonse said in a small voice, attempting to play off his fear. I managed a smirk._

"_I don't know about any of his sketches, but I think he knows how to draw a circle, Alphonse," I told the sixteen-year-old soul, and from the sound that he made, I knew that he was expressing a weak smile._

"_It's so... complex. Huge. And Brother's always working so hard." As an afterthought, he added, "It's not as if you help him, you know, Colonel. Always making him rewrite reports and stuff. He's stays up really late at night sometimes to get his work finished for you, Sir."_

_I cleared my throat and sent a quick glance over at Edward, suddenly figuring out why the little idiot always had a shadow under his eyes. For a moment, I wondered if I had ever been a little too hard on him. After all, he wasn't the sort of person to do anything half-assed, and he certainly didn't accept criticism very well. Hard-headed, stubborn, unnaturally obnoxious... he was the reason I never wanted kids. _

_For some odd reason, though, I sort of enjoyed watching him succeed. _

"_Colonel?" Alphonse brought me out of my thoughts with a soft voice. "Would you promise me something? Promise something to both me and Ed?"_

_I hated promises. You always had to keep them. I thought of several different ways to escape Alphonse's question, and came up with nothing. Sighing, I rubbed the back of my head uncomfortably and answered him._

"_Sure, Alphonse. I'll do my best to promise," I exhaled. That seemed to be enough for him._

"_Promise you won't interfere when the time comes to do the transmutation, Sir. Edward wouldn't want you to do anything drastic, especially after we worked so hard to do this." _

_I looked away from him. There were some things that I really just didn't want to promise. After all, I couldn't... I couldn't just sit there and watch them if they actually ended up failing, right? What if the transmutation backfired and Ed lost something else close to him? What if he lost Alphonse for good? No. I didn't want to promise Alphonse something like that. It would be unfair to the both of them._

"_I..." _

_But then again, if they did failed and I didn't promise, would Alphonse's last memory be of my inability to keep a promise? _

"_Alphonse, I..."_

_What about my subordinates? I told them that I planned on going to the top to become Fuhrer. If I left them behind, what would happen to them? Oh. Hawkeye. She would keep them in line, and she knew that I wanted her to be the one to succeed me after Hughes died. But still, everyone would..._

"_Colonel?" Alphonse asked hesitantly. His voice echoed eerily through the empty armor._

_They'd gone too far in their journey to fail now. Besides, Edward didn't have a sacrifice to give to the Gate. The transmutation wouldn't work at all, unless he was planning on bringing back only Alphonse, and even then, the kid would probably be missing half an intestine or something. Their only motivation in life was to be whole again, and all I wanted to do was become powerful. Two functioning, living boys or presidency? Damn the odds._

"_I promise, Alphonse..." 'that I won't let you two fail again'. But of course, I didn't really say that. Alphonse would tell Edward, and then the little punk would fume at me for the rest of his life and the afterlife. I'd probably end up meeting him in hell, and that was supposed to be for eternity. So, I kept the rest of my promise to myself._

"_Alright, Al! We're done!" Edward declared from the other end of the room, rubbing a smear of chalk off of his cheek with his arm. Fuery had his rifle in his hands again and was almost slumping against the back wall. His clothes and face were smeared with chalk as well, and his eyes looked heavy and tired. He wanted the transmutation over as much as I did._

"_Al, you lay down in the middle of the circle. I'll stay on the outside to activate it, and it'll affect me too. Colonel." He shot a firm, sharp glare at me that could rival only Hawkeye's, "Stay in the corner. If you're going to be here, then you're not going to interfere."_

_Boy, was he going to hate me._

"_Alright, Fullmetal, but I expect you both to have functioning limbs when you're done."_

"_And I expect you to not get any stupid ideas. Don't interfere, Mustang," Edward growled, though I could sense that he really wanted me to be safe. Sure, we had our spats, fights, if you will, but I don't think we entirely hated each other. After all, underneath the teenager shell, Edward was a pretty respectable person overall. And I _mean _overall. He wasn't the easiest person to get along with when he got determined, just as he was now._

_And my idea wasn't stupid. _

"_Sending your superior to the corner. Very brave," I muttered as I stalked over to the corner of the room and stood at-ease. I watched as Alphonse adjusted himself, lying flat down on his back. I couldn't tell if the kid was staring up at the ceiling or anything. The hollow glow underneath his helmet was indecipherable. _

"_The others are outside?" Edward asked to no one in particular, glancing towards the closed door with a swallow of what I assumed was nervousness. Hell, I was nervous. My hands were a little shaky, and I had the unquenchable urge to glance around myself. We would need Havoc, Hawkeye, or Breda to help us if anything went wrong._

_But nothing was going to go wrong if I could help it. Perhaps, that's why I was shaking._

"_They'd better be," I answered Ed, "I gave them specific orders to-"_

"_Alright, Colonel, I didn't ask for a report," Edward snapped, sounding exasperated. With a dull thump, he kneeled down abruptly in front of the edge of the transmutation circle. The sound of his clap reverberated off the walls, sounding almost deafening to my ears, though I was probably hallucinating._

_Before he released his hands from the clap, Edward looked over at me with a smile I'd never seen on him before. It was one of those 'Hey, I'll be alright. Don't worry about me' smiles. I swallowed hard to escape the lump in my throat as I watched him turn to Alphonse._

"_Let's bring our bodies back, Al," he said so quietly that I knew he wanted only Alphonse to hear him. Then, his fingertips touched the chalk, and a vortex of light erupted from the white design on the floor. It swirled and wavered so fluidly that I couldn't help but stare at it, mesmerized. There was a rushing sound in my ears, and I felt a strong breeze coming from the circle itself. Edward's hair was whipping out of its braid and brushing his cheeks, but his eyes were closed hard in concentration. Alphonse was silent, not that I would be able to hear him doing anything anyways with all of the noise. A quick glance to the corner, and I saw Fuery cowering against the wall, his rifle cocked. _

_It seemed to be going well. I thought they wouldn't have needed my help. And then, I heard Edward cry out in pain, and I saw that his automail arm was slowly disintegrating from the fingertips to his shoulder. The nerves were being taken along with the particles towards the middle of the light funnel. He was in pain, and the lump in my throat was back. The wind seemed to get louder._

"_Fullmetal! Stop the transmutation!" I screamed, but no one could hear me over the wind. If I could only grab him and force his arms away from the circle before he could kill himself..._

_I took a step, then another. My feet began carrying me towards the howling funnel, and my arm went up over my eyes to shield myself. Faintly, I thought I could hear Fuery screaming for me to stop, but I did nothing of the sort. I kept walking slowly towards Edward, hearing his screams escalate until I could visibly see his blanched face and the cloud of moving particles that were being picked apart from his shoulder and neck. He was going to suffocate if it got to his throat. Droplets of blood were already being swept away from the side of his body. He saw me and yelled for me to stop walking. I didn't._

_Then, I was at the edge of the circle. It was glowing a radiant white against the dull gray concrete floor, and the wind that came with the transmutation was billowing steadily from the chalk lines. The heat of the transmutation was almost overwhelming. I smelled burning flesh and felt pain in my cheeks. When I touched them, they were covered with a sheen of my own blood. I was burning. I was too close. Edward was gasping and shrieking at the same time now. I could see the lines of straining muscle in the cords of his neck. His jaw bone was visible. The skull around his eyeball was nearly gone. _

_Without any further thought, I stepped directly onto the circle. As the chalk smudged under my boot, I felt an unrecognizable and alien pain rip through my body, traveling from toes to hair follicles in less than a second. I couldn't even scream. I wanted to step back, but I was so deeply rooted in pain that I couldn't even process the memory of walking backwards. My skin felt slimy; it was flaking off, my cells swirling away towards the center of the circle. My uniform had dissolved. I was completely bare to the pain now. _

_I felt two arms wrap around my shoulders, trying to drag me back. It was Fuery. He opened his mouth to yell at me, but I heard surprised cry come from him instead. He fell back onto the ground, his front covered in my blood and his mouth cascading with his own. I didn't see anything else. I continued to feel the pain of being slowly taken apart._

_The only thing I could think was: When will I die? It wouldn't take long, would it? Not that I had anything to do. I had already gotten myself into deep crap. I just didn't think that it would take this long to die. I was sacrificing myself, for crying out loud. Couldn't the Gate just eat me whole and be done? It would be much easier than picking me apart for the whole world to see. _

_I got the sudden image of a child savoring a bowl of rice, grain by grain. Grain by grain by damn grain. Over and over and over. The bowl was half-empty. The fork would spear just one little white grain at a time, and the mouth would eat the grain and crush it. Then, it would be another grain's turn. Just a continuous cycle until the bowl was empty. Grain by grain by grain by grain by..._

_..._

_I didn't remember ever lying down during the transmutation, but the next thing I knew, the wind was gone, and so was the screaming, and so was the pain. The insides of my eyelids were a bright red from the light shining through them. My fingers twitched. I sat up._

_I felt lightheaded and gleeful, sort of like one feels after drinking too much. With a soft groan, I forced myself to my feet, but immediately stumbled backwards. It was weird... without the heavy boots I wore, I didn't make a single sound as I wobbled backwards like a newborn fawn. In fact, the only sounds I could hear were coming from me. Just... breathing. _

_There was a creak. I whirled around soundlessly and nearly collided with a solid, stone door. It towered over me ominously, and the slit in the middle of it was expanding slowly. I could see thousands upon thousands of large, dilated eyes staring down at me. The Gate._

_I clambered backwards awkwardly, giving the Gate room to open. The eyes kept staring down at me, mocking, waiting. Waiting for what? _

_A soft moan echoed from the darkness of the open Gate, and I saw Edward stumble out unclothed with half of his body covered in a sheen of blood. It was then that I realized I fared the same state, only with my whole body was stained crimson. Strangely enough, I didn't _feel_ naked. Edward collapsed, and I instinctively caught him, kneeling down to lower his limp form onto the ground next to me. The Gate creaked shut, and then I could only hear my breathing again._

"_Edward..?" ...ward... ward... ward..? _

_My eyes scanned his body. There were no injuries, and there was no automail. With a clenched heart, I saw the seamless shoulder where his fleshy right arm extended down to perfectly formed fingertips. His left leg was seamlessly in place as well, and the toes were twitching gently. It was then that my subordinate opened his eyes slowly and watched me. _

"_I... told... you," he whispered raggedly. "Told you... don't interfere..." _

"_You're not the boss of me, Fullmetal," I said in an oddly calm voice. He sat up slowly, examining his own body in disbelief._

"_It worked. It's back," he said in a slurred, dazed tone. His eyes searched the continuing white space around us. "Alphonse?"_

"_He might be back already, Fullmetal," I mused, "He's probably waiting for you. Go on. Wake up or whatever you do." He looked up at me with a lost expression._

"_Aren't you coming?" he asked. I looked down at the bloody handprint I'd left on the shapeless ground below me. I couldn't feel my fingers. I couldn't feel much of anything, really. I was so lightheaded._

"_I don't think I will ever be coming back, Fullmetal," I said as if I were just starting a conversation. Edward seemed to understand._

"_You're dead, aren't you?" he said quietly, "I told you to stop walking, you know." As he held up his right arm to examine it again, it began to fade away into the white background. "If only you'd listened to me, Colonel." The rest of his body began to fade as well, until only his shoulders and above remained slowly drifting away. "Damn you." His usual cocky grin was plastered on his face, even as the rest of him became nothing. He was gone, probably back at the gun factory between the Central and East city, waiting for Alphonse to wake up and wondering if I was only kidding. _

_The Gate was silent, unbearably silent. My skin felt sticky and crusted with blood, and my eyes stung. I didn't know what to do. Would I simply stay there forever? Or would I vanish? Everything just felt so... so pointless. I was sitting nude in front of a giant stone door with no scenery around me, much less any noise. _

"_Hello?" I called. "Can anyone hear me?" My voice echoed off of unseen walls and came back at me like a punch to the face. So I was alone. Truly alone. I'd never known what that felt like, not even during the Ishbalan war. "And so the Colonel spent his eternity repenting to a door," I muttered._

_As if it had heard me, the Gate groaned and began to sweep open again. As the eyes began gleaming down at me for the second time, I felt a strong, vacuum-like wind begin pulling me in. Even as I resisted, I felt my blood-slickened body slide across the non-existent ground towards the darkness of the Gate. When I figured that I couldn't resist the movement, I began to scream in panic. It was going to eat me. What would it feel like to be eaten?_

_I looked over my shoulder, wondering if I could find something that I could latch onto to keep from being carried away into the wind. In horror, the only thing I saw was my own body, sprawled across the floor in the same position that I usually slept in. At the moment, I was a soul. _

"_Wake up!" I screamed at myself, "You damn idiot! Wake up!" I thrashed and kicked my legs as if the vacuum were a pair of strong arms. My resistance was futile. Ha. I sounded like a freak alien movie. I was going to die inside of a nightmare after living in one. _

_The Gate closed behind me, and I was left in the most complete... unimaginable..._

_...darkness._


	7. Chapter 7

Eheh. ^^ Okay, I'm really sorry this chapter took so long, even though it's rather pathetic. I lost the file to... something, and I had to work around it and fix stuff and it was long and tedious work. So, I'm sorry again.

If I get enough comments, I'll post the epilogue within the week. Enjoy.

Just as a refresher, the large chunks of italics are Mustang. He's dead.... so he gets italics.

Disclaimer: Nope. Don't own FMA at all. Pity, eh?

* * *

xxxxx

"Colonel Mustang never returned to us and, because of the copious amounts of blood on the floor... we assumed he was dead. His funeral was about a week-"

"We don't need to hear about his funeral, Major Elric, we just want the facts. According to the report you gave, you and your brother assume that Colonel Mustang now resides in two places at once?" The judge was uninterestedly flipping through the photos of the file as if they were just scenes from a recent horror film. Edward couldn't help but force himself to hold back the angry stinging behind his eyes. Swallowing a phrase that he probably shouldn't use in front of a military judge, he answered,

"My younger brother and I did see that the shadow of Colonel Mustang was in the corner of the picture, yes. Is there a problem, Sir?" Ed ground out between his teeth. How _dare_ he continue to act like the case was nothing more than a simple murder? It was a damn case of life and death and the lump in the pulpit was talking to him as if he were a juvenile delinquent.

"Oh no, not at all," the judge mused, fingering his stubble as he looked over the picture. He had chosen to ignore Edward's comment. "It's just, I'm not sure if the laws of both physics and science apply to your story. He's now in... two places at once, you said? Which two places might those be?" He sounded as if he were speaking to a child who believed he had imaginary friends. Edward swallowed the irritating lump once more.

"My brother and I believe that Mustang can traverse between the Gate and our world-"

"As a ghost?" The judge let out the beginning of a chuckle.

"No, Sir." Edward's voice held an edge that his colleagues caught, but not the judge. "As a soul. We believe that Mustang's shadow, when it was left in our world, somehow held a part of his soul that wasn't taken to the Gate with his body. Thus, Colonel Mustang's full soul can travel from the Gate to our world-"

"This is alchemy, Major Elric, not a child's ghost story." The judge flipped the file shut, and Edward felt the lump in his throat drop down to the tips of his toes.

"B-But Sir!" he stammered angrily, "Sir, with all due respect, we were the only ones present at the transmutation. Surely, we know what-"

"I have the right to strip you of your power to speak in this court, Major Elric, and I will tell you this now before you embarrass yourself: There is no way for a human to be in two places at once. It is as simple as that. If you can find evidence to prove otherwise, we'll put people on it, but I _seriously_ doubt it will happen. Now, we have your testimony, and all we need to do is have Mustang's subordinates fill out a report on the transmutation. I also need their signatures-"

"But Sir, I-"

"-on this document here. You all will be examined by a professional psychologist in the very near future. This court case has been adjourned."

The sound of the gavel echoed in time with the feel of Edward's heart sinking. He was shaking, downright trembling even. Frustration oozed from his every pore, he wanted to strangle the judge with his bare hands, hit him until he got his point across.

_He's a good kid. I'm glad he learned to tell the truth. I just wish he would stop crying. Dammit, Fullmetal, stand up straight. Keep your head up, look that idiot in the eye. Just don't cry. Stop leaning on your brother's shoulder like that, it's embarrassing. You've got the story down on paper, you've told everyone what happened. Is it really worth crying over right now? _

_I'm proud of you, though, kid. I know it was tough, standing up there in front of that idiot and talking about what you'd rather not even think of. It takes some real guts. Hell, you haven't even thought of suicide, which I could never resist thinking of. _

_But I swear to hell, if you don't stop crying this instant, I'm going to go back to the Gate, getting my body, and dropping it on you in your sleep. And don't think I won't do it._

"Hey, Chief," Havoc comfortingly set a hand on Edward's shoulder, distracting the younger blonde from his attempt to keep his sniffles silent. "You did good. I never could've told a better testimony."

"Thanks," Edward said softly, rubbing his suit sleeve over his eyes and then looking guiltily at the damp spot on Alphonse's shoulder. He'd never felt so overwhelmed before in his life. He felt like he'd gone through a hundred encounters with Barry the Chopper at once. Alphonse still hadn't regained his color from the shock of seeing his sibling so shaken.

"Brother..?" Alphonse asked timidly, one of his hands twitching to touch his own dampened shoulder. Edward smiled half-heartedly.

"I'm okay, Al. I promise," he said lowly. Then, he looked over at Fuery.

"You know, Alphonse really didn't need those wisdom teeth back," Edward said jokingly, though his face only held the smallest of crooked smirks. Fuery, who had cowering at Hawkeye's side during the entire court case, was finally beginning to regain the color in his cheeks. His trembling hands were shoved into his pockets, making him lean into a rather unusual slouch.

_Well, damn, Fuery. Your hunching isn't much better than Edward's crying. Aren't you a soldier? Stand up straight._

Hawkeye licked her dry lips...

_No lipstick? Not even that chapstick she used to wear? What has this world come to?_

… and began to shrug her overcoat back on over her uniform while saying, "Gentlemen, I think it's time that we leave. They'll send us the paperwork, along with that psychologist information." She said 'psychologist' as if it were a bitter medicine in her mouth.

Havoc cursed the judge foully under his breath as he pulled on his own overcoat, then handed Fuery his scarf. The men, including Edward and Alphonse, all followed Hawkeye towards the door with slumped shoulders and downcast eyes.

_Good job, men. I'm proud of you all._

* * *

I told you it was pathetic. /sigh/ Well, read and review. Please don't complain about the shortness. I actually intended for it to be that way.


	8. Epilogue

Here's the epilogue for you guys. I really hope you enjoyed the story, even though some of the chapters were a bit short. If you have any ideas for another story, feel free to add them in your comments. Maybe I'll dedicate one to you.

Many wishes of happiness and blah blah blah.

~ Amelia-Maria

P.S.= Feel free to shout out any clues you see relating to the judge's comment on finding evidence of Mustang's soul's existence. That should be a big enough clue.

Disclaimer: I don't own FMA.

* * *

"Look, Alphonse!"

Elysia held up her notebook proudly, showing the younger brother Elric her picture. A trio of poorly scribbled blobs were lined up across the center of the page with a few scratches of black over their heads. If he squinted hard enough, Alphonse could see that she had attempted to write out their names with large crayon.

"It's great, Elysia," Alphonse said, smiling kindly and accepting the picture as she tore it out of the notebook to hand to him. A small snort of laughter coming from Alphose's side made Elysia's face redden.

"S'not a bad picture!" she screeched at Edward, planting her hands on her hips. Alphonse shook his head.

"It's a very good picture, Elysia. Thank you."

The Elric brothers were - more or less - reclining against the backboard of Elysia's frilly pink bed, though Edward was more along the lines of laying down. The little blonde girl was keeping them captive for the evening, completely intent on drawing them a whole notebook full of pictures. Elysia really did have some talent in drawing, but every once in a while, she would come up with something that reminded the older Elric of a puddle of colorful vomit.

"Big brother Elric is mean!" Elysia exclaimed, dropping her crayon on the floor and climbing up onto the bed so that she could pounce on Edward. The blonde male laughed and caught her easily, tossing her onto Alphonse's lap.

"I'm not mean!" he protested playfully, "Alphonse laughed, too!"

"I did not!"

_I could've watched those kids for hours. They always left me laughing, and I needed a good laugh, especially after the court case last week. I had spent the last few nights at Hughes's grave, laying against the stone and even curling up against it as I tried to forget the Gate and everything else Edward had explained to the judge. People never really think about it, but lost souls and ghosts have nightmares. I couldn't sleep, but that didn't mean I couldn't dream either. _

_I watched as the three of them began a tickling fight, the result being Alphonse and Elysia teaming up against Edward. It was entertaining to watch Edward scream like a kicked cat, thrashing around on the floor with Elysia sitting on his stomach. For a few moments, I almost wanted to join in... perhaps initiate a wrestling match. I frowned at my thoughts. I wasn't their father. Neither of the boys would take kindly to such a physical form of affection from anyone, much less myself. _

_..._

_It was late now. After a good hour and a half more of continuous tickling and drawing, Edward and Alphonse carried Elysia back to her bed, then sat on the floor to begin picking up the crayons. That was when I got an idea. My eyes went straight to a lime-green crayon lying on a piece of forgotten paper._

_It was pissing me off, though. Of course I couldn't pick up the damn thing, but couldn't I at least kick it? I swung my foot forward again and gave the air around the crayon a good swipe, but the only thing that happened was the crayon jerked forward an inch, leaving a bright green stripe in its wake. It was pissing... me... off. I couldn't write anything like this._

"_You know," a voice said from behind me, and I felt a cool hand on my shoulder, "You could just ask for help."_

_I looked over my shoulder at Hughes in surprise. I forgot that he could go anywhere he wanted. _

"_You couldn't have come at a better time, Hughes." I grinned and gestured at my previous task. "I need you to write something for me."_

"I missed a crayon," Alphonse announced, glancing over at the lime-green crayon in the corner that was lying neatly on top of a piece of paper. The brown-haired teen bounded over to it and picked up the materials, slipping the crayon into the box as his eyes wandered over the paper. They widened considerably. "Brother? You're going to want to see this," he called quietly, but a grin had broken out on his face.

Edward tucked the last of the pictures into Elysia's notebook and laid it on her bed before he went to Alphonse's side. "What is it?" His eyes scanned the paper, "What? This isn't Elysia's handwriting."

"It's Hughes', but he wouldn't say this," Alphonse stated, still grinning as he re-read the paper.

"Maybe it's an old note," Edward mused. Alphonse nudged him.

"I don't think this is something Hughes would say to Elysia. It sounds like..." Alphonse took the moment to chuckle, "Like something a certain someone would say to you."

'_By the way, my idea wasn't stupid.'_

Edward could only laugh softly. "That idiot Colonel."

* * *

The End.


End file.
